When practicing golf at the driving range, setting each ball on the tee is a necessary, if uninviting task. Therefore, over the years many devices have been designed to aid in accomplishing this task. There are devices having an assortment of feeding mechanisms. Some of the devices are towers with a long spiral track. Others are hoppers that lead into a track that zigzags down prior to feeding the balls. The long track designs try to feed most if not all of the balls into the track, thereby reducing the problems of the balls jamming on the way to the outlet. However, these long track designs are generally expensive to manufacture due to the many or long sections of track. Frequently these devices also require that the user feed each ball into the track manually.
The prior art also has a plurality of different styles of levers and arms that are actuated to place the golf balls. Frequently these devices are expensive to manufacture due to the number of parts required for the device to properly place the ball.
Another family of golf ball feeders has the ball roll into place. This style of feeder is prone to failure since the ball is moving in a generally horizontal path when the ball reaches the desired location. In this situation, there is a high probability that the ball will continue to roll and move past the chosen location.
Examples of prior art devices are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4132214 to Schnurr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4265453 to Loof, U.S. Pat. No. 4360204 to Karr, U.S. Pat. No. 4391446 to Eberle, U.S. Pat. No. 4541632 to Tillery, U.S. Pat. No. 4602789 to Chung, U.S. Pat. No. 4676397 to Hoffmeister, U.S. Pat. No. 4732391 to Karr, U.S. Pat. No. 4741537 to Adam, U.S. Pat. No. 4817955 to Hickson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4981299 to Petrillo, U.S. Pat. No. 5326107 to Park, U.S. Pat. No. 5820475 to Luna, U.S. Pat. No. 5743804 to Bacon, U.S. Pat. No. 5839607 to Swanson and U.S. Pat. No. 5885174 to Barnes.
However, all of the designs are prone to jamming or bridging which is when the configuration and friction of the balls allows the balls to form a bridge over the outlet or exit hole from the hopper. A user must then open the lid and agitate the balls in order to continue feeding balls.